


And would it have been worth it, after all

by arrogantbullyingtoerag



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-21
Updated: 2018-07-23
Packaged: 2019-04-06 08:06:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14052594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arrogantbullyingtoerag/pseuds/arrogantbullyingtoerag
Summary: It’s twenty years of finding each other.(or, another story of Tessa and Scott and the years that happened between)





	1. After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets

**Author's Note:**

> I never thought I’d write fanfiction for anything other than Harry Potter, let alone two Canadian ice dancers I just discovered a month ago. But alas, here I am. 
> 
> That being said, even after watching old shows and interviews I still know next to nothing about Tessa and Scott and even less about ice-skating. So although I will try my best, this simply won’t be factually accurate and I am honestly too lazy to research that deeply. This is just for fun, so please bear with me and enjoy the fiction. 
> 
> This story is going to detail scenes from their childhood up to adulthood. Titles are from T. S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” which doesn’t relate to VM at all but it’s my favorite poem so I’m using it. Hoping this fic turns out well, because I really have no idea what I’m doing!

i.

_(Let us go then, you and I)_

  
She still remembers the day she met him. The memory is always grainy when she replays it in her mind, staticky like the videotapes of their first competitions together, seven and nine. There was something almost mundane about that moment, walking into that small rink in the little town on a sunny afternoon and placing her hand into a boy’s for the very first time. It happened so casually, though in retrospect, perhaps there should have been trumpets playing fanfare or at least a zing that shocked from her fingertips to her elbows. But how would any of them know what was to come?

It wasn’t normal, by any means, to be stroking side by side around the rink with this stranger whose hand felt foreign and boyish as it grasped hers. He looked forwards; she looked down, matching her skates to his.

 _Right, left, right left_ , she whispered in her mind, her lips forming the shape of her words silently.

It wasn’t ordinary, in the scheme of things, that when they finally stopped they were asked, _Do you think you might like skating together?_  and Tessa had looked up into his face—brown hair, big eyes—and thought she might.

 

ii.

_(When the evening is spread out against the sky)_

  
She had her first kiss at the Ilderton Skating Carnival when she was eight, with the boy who held her hand for two hours in the afternoon three times a week. The April air was sickly sweet, evening settling around them when he leaned in and pecked her on the cheek. Then he was pulling her out onto the ice and all she felt was nothing except the burning of her hand in his.

It wasn’t even a real kiss, but in later years whenever the question came up, _Who was your first kiss?_ this was always what came to mind—the sticky spring night and his lips warm and wet against her skin, and the way her spine tingled for days afterwards.

 

iii.

_(Like a patient etherized upon a table)_

  
She made her mother put the flowers from the carnival into a vase, and they were wilting by the time the phone call came. He called her on the phone, which he had never done, and she thought foolishly to herself that real life was beginning. His words were crackly through the receiver, but she heard every sound he uttered as he fumbled through his sentences. Afterwards, she set the phone down and pulled the flowers out of the vase, dry and dripping. She handed them to her mother the way Scott handed them to her that April evening. _They’re dead_ , she said. And that was that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (You can find me at arrogantbullying-toerag on Tumblr and if you’re into Harry Potter, I write fanfiction under AprilMuggle on ffnet)


	2. After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for those who left comments and kudos on my first chapter! I didn’t think people would actually...read and like my story.
> 
> I’m sorry this took me so long to update. Truthfully, even though I promised myself not to get too hung up on the facts, I realized I still don’t really know anything much about their life—not enough to write a story, at least. I’ve watched interviews, but regarding the early years, I’ve gotten most of my information from their book—except I don’t own it, so I’ve only been able to read the preview. I don’t know much of anything about when they went to Canton so the next chapter(s) are going to be...really difficult.
> 
> In any case, at least I’ve finished this chapter so enjoy!

iv.

_(To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet)_

 

Memories of the early years are an endless blur; all the mornings spent on the ice in Kitchener-Waterloo blend together to become one moment in her brain, a smooth reel of the same thing over and over again. In retrospect, it couldn’t have been unchanging—for they learned, and improved, and they got _good_. Soon they weren’t just stroking around the ice; soon, they were twizzling around at breakneck speed and dancing across the expanse of the rink like...like they _owned_ it.

In her mind though, the time spent there is compressed into a single frame—Tessa at eight, Tessa at nine, Tessa at ten...to her they were all the same version of herself (skinny limbs and pointy bones and a little bit lovestruck).

Mostly what she remembers about that time is Scott, and those are the memories that are distinctive in her mind; the glimmers of moments that seem to have an annoying tendency to pop into her head at all the wrong moments (lying in bed at night, in the darkness of a hospital room, standing on top of the podium nearly 20 years later and knowing it’s the end). What she remembers is this: sitting side by side on benches licking ice-cream cones, racing to the car from the doors of the rink, feeling the weight of his head against the Marvin the Martian body pillow squished between them, falling asleep to the quiet thrum of the engine and his even breathing.

(She doesn’t tell anyone this, but when she was 20 and realized suddenly on a visit home that the pillow was missing from her childhood bedroom, she’d yelled at her mother for throwing it away with tears tracking down her face). (She was scared that 20 years from now, she wouldn’t have enough tangible things to hold in her hands and remind her of this crazy childhood she spent, the years of her youth and young adulthood spent chasing down a dream).

If a play was made about their childhood, this would be the backdrop: the church, looming and still in the deepness of the early morning, the car turning down the corner of the road, and Scott. Always Scott.

 

v.

_(There will be time to murder and create)_

 

In time, they won something. They won lots of things. They won _gold_ at the juvenile national championships and in a lot of ways it didn’t mean anything but in some ways it did mean something. To their parents, she supposes, it meant the beginning. To Scott, it meant winning. But to her, standing beside his warm body, it felt like a promise—that this was special, that this would become something worth it all.

Scott turned to her, and he was on top of the world—sweating, smiling, and reveling in the bliss of winning. “Nothing will ever feel as good as this,” he told her, holding up his gold medal and looking at it with his big eyes.

She stared at him, treasuring this moment away in her heart. _Nothing will ever feel as good as this_ , she agreed to herself.

 

vi.

_(And time for all the works and days of hands)_

 

To her, those years in her childhood are the halcyon days, yes because they were becoming something on the ice but also because it was the time when everything was still happy and simple and not tainted by the bitter, addictive tang of competition, by trying to play the game in the face of politics, by sneering, skinny girls in locker rooms, by winning so much that they feared not winning.

In those days she was still naïve enough to think (and perhaps it was still true) that skating was a part of her life and not the entirety of it. (A few years down the road and she would be wrong).

Still, she thinks she did get to live a relatively normal childhood—like other kids, she played a sport, and it just so happened that she was kinda good. Those were the days when they played tag in Scott’s backyard, all the siblings and cousins running around while the fathers barbecued hamburgers on the grill and the mothers wiped sticky lemonade off their children’s hands. Those are the moments that make her heart hurt a little bit whenever she looks back on them with bittersweet sentimentality; and she keeps them closed from herself in the times she is not riddled by overwhelming nostalgia, when she succumbs to her weakness and rifles through the memories in her brain.

It was in those days that they became—not skating partners, not best friends—but family. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you have any helpful information about the Canton years...please message me on tumblr at arrogantbullying-toerag lol.


	3. After the cups, the marmalade, the tea

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, long time no see! I'm really quite iffy about this chapter, but I'm glad to finally have it over with. Maybe I'll come back to it later. I've actually had the last scene in this written for months--I wrote it when I wrote the first chapter.  
> As always, any feedback is appreciated!

vii.

_(Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys)_

  
The Salt Lake City Winter Olympics rolled around, and Tessa spent as much time as she could glued to the TV, watching the events and especially figure skating. Scott wore his Canada toque everywhere, red pom-pom bobbing around as they skated around the rink in the early mornings. She’d beg him to take it off, but he’d keep it on until the end of each session when he’d throw the sweaty hat at her and she’d squeal in disgust.

Sometimes they’d watch the events together, piled on the Moir couch with Danny and Charlie or sitting in the Virtue basement, Tessa clutching the remote with tense nervousness and Scott jumping around and yelling in front of the TV.

They were at their own homes, though, when they watched the pairs long program. The phone rang afterwards, and when Tessa picked it up, it was Scott on the other end, outraged.

“Did you _see_ that?!” he asked. “I can’t believe that just happened. Salé and Pelletier should have gotten the gold!”

Tessa hummed in agreement, listening to him rant for another 10 minutes. Back then, skating politics had not yet touched them, seeming a faraway thing; they should have noticed, though, that it was making its steady approach, and maybe Tessa should have looked out for the warning signs of everything that was to come. At the time, however, she was mostly reflecting on the perfect edges, the costumes, the choreographies; on how she and Scott really didn’t call each other on the phone that often, considering how much time they spent together in real life, and _did that say something bad about their friendship?_

They did watch ice dancing together, cheering on Bourne/Kraatz and Dubreuil/Lauzon with their Canada gear. Tessa watched all the couples doing their Quicksteps and Blues, daring to imagine, for a second, her and Scott on the ice. As they watched the French couple leaning down for the gold medals to be placed around their necks, Scott poked her shoulder.

“That could be us one day, eh?” He said it lightly, jokingly, but she saw the determined glimmer in his eye and knew that he too was daring to want this.

She laughed, but since that day her dreams had been drenched in gold, and in her waking moments she imagined the Olympic rings beneath her every time she stepped out onto the ice.

 

viii.

_(Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap)_

  
It seemed to Tessa that she had spent her entire life feeling young. She was the youngest sibling, she was youngest in their ice dance pair, and now here she was, standing on the steps of Bluevale Collegiate Institute and younger than everyone else.

Scott had run up ahead and he turned back now to look at her from the top step, squinting in the harsh sunlight. “C’mon, Tess!”

She hurried to catch up to him, feeling like they were two people suspended in a freeze frame, moving in slow-motion while the other high-schoolers streaming by (taller, older, bigger) were a fast motion blur. It wasn’t the first, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last time that the world seemed to zoom in on just the two of them, even the light filtering differently through the iridescent film of their little bubble, as Tessa looked up the steps at Scott.

  
The bell rang, signaling the end of third period, and Tessa was caught in the lunchtime rush as the mass of high-schoolers moved towards the cafeteria. Tessa struggled through the bodies to get to her locker, trying not to panic as she pulled uselessly on her lock after doing the combination wrong for the third time. Taking a deep breath she tried again, and blessedly, it worked. She grabbed her new lunch bag (floral, quilted, devoid of tutued ballerinas) from the upper shelf, having to stretch to reach it. When she turned around the hallway was silent and empty, and Tessa realized she couldn’t quite remember how to get to the cafeteria.

Tessa would be lying if she said she didn’t feel a bit of relief. The problem of who to sit with at lunch had been a looming question in her mind; and despite her hopes, no one had extended the New Girl an invitation to sit at their table. In fact, besides the cursory glance at her and her two missing front teeth each time she walked into a classroom, no one had talked, much less _looked_ at her at all.

And so she found herself sitting on the toilet lid in the last stall of the second floor bathroom, nibbling at the sandwich Rebecca had neatly packed for her (prosciutto, lettuce, tomato on Italian bread).

She wondered briefly how Scott was doing. No doubt he had already made friends, always being able to adapt to new social situations like a duck takes to water. No doubt he wouldn’t want his 13 year old ice dance partner hanging around him at school. Scott never said it, but Tessa often felt she was a burden to him. She knew her parents had, before they’d moved here, given him the whole ‘Protect Tessa!’ spiel, a fact which was highly embarrassing. Adults had been constantly telling Scott those words for the past six years, saying he had to watch out for her, and take care of her, and be responsible, as he was the older one. Tessa wanted to yell that she didn’t need him to protect her, but it was in times like these when she realized she really was terrible at doing things by herself.

  
At the end of the period, Tessa was back at her locker, putting her lunchbox away and getting her books for her next class when Scott walked by. Sure enough, he was with a group of guys, talking and laughing. “Hey, Tessa!” he called when he spotted her.

She turned and waved, feeling an immediate sense of comfort at seeing his familiar face.

He came over to her. “How’s it going, kiddo?” he asked, and Tessa made a face at the nickname.

“Um. Okay,” she replied. She slammed her locker shut and spun the dial on the lock. “What class do you have next?” she asked, but Scott was distracted, looking down the hallway. She followed his gaze to a girl walking with her friends, blonde hair swinging behind her, and she rolled her eyes.

(It would be another few years before Scott’s first serious girlfriend, but at 15 even he wasn’t immune to the mind of teenage guys. But through all his flirtations, relationships, and superficial attractions, Tessa had always been placed first in his mind. She didn’t know it then, and she wouldn’t know it for years after, but he would have always chosen skating over girlfriends, her hand over someone else’s. He would have, and, sometimes, he really did.)

“Oh, what? Uh, science,” Scott said, turning back to her. “Okay, gotta go. See you at practice.”

“See ya.”

 

ix.

_(And seeing that it was a soft October night)_

  
“Wait,” said Scott, holding out a hand as she reached out towards the doorknob.

She crossed her arms with an eye-roll, lids heavy with glittery powder. She almost felt like she was going into a competition, her nerves on high drive and jittery anticipation flowing in her bones. She could hear the music on the other side of the door, and she imagined bodies pulsing in time with the bass.

“What, Scott? I want to go inside. I’m cold.”

His eyes flickered down at her exposed collarbones and bare arms, dress dangling by thin straps. “You should’ve worn more,” he said. “It’s only April.”

“Get to the point.”

“I really shouldn’t be letting you do this,” he began, and she thought that if she rolled her eyes any harder they would get stuck in the back of her head.

“Scott. I _know_. You’ve said this a million and one times.”

“But it’s true, okay?!” he burst out. “I promised your parents I’d take care of you, and they _trust_ me, okay, Tessa? They trust me. That’s the whole reason we were even allowed to move here. I don’t think letting you go to random parties where there’s alcohol is exactly taking care of you!”

She glared up at him, willing the pressure building behind her eyes to recede. “I don’t need you to protect me. I’m not seven anymore.”

“You’re 15,” he scoffed, “and if your parents catch a whiff of this you bet they’re shipping us back to Ontario. And then what will happen to our skating?”

She’s had enough with this conversation. She put her hand back on the doorknob and yanked the door open. “Don’t act like I’m jeopardizing our careers by going to this one party. God knows how many you’ve been to. And for the record?” she added, stumbling a bit in her heels as she stepped into the house. “Sometimes I wish I _could_ get shipped back home.” She turned and walked into the house, straightening her shoulders and putting on her competition smile. (She’s always been good at compartmentalizing). _Don’t let him ruin your night_ , she repeated to herself.

  
She was not having fun. Not really. And as she sat there, perched on the edge of the kitchen cabinet with her red cup, she couldn’t help but be mad at Scott. He’d always had such control over her emotions, as much as she wished he didn’t.

As if her thoughts had brought him there, he appeared suddenly in the kitchen doorway, and Tessa wanted to laugh with the ridiculousness of it. She stared quickly down at the contents of her cup.

“Can I get you something?” he asked, slightly out of breath and she could picture exactly how he looked, sweaty and charming.

A girl answered him, “Just coke,” and Tessa could hear him pouring their drinks.

“Oh, Tessa,” he said suddenly, surprised, and she glanced up as if she was just noticing them.

“Hi,” she said casually, waving and smiling in what she hoped was a convincing version of _I’m not mad at you anymore._

She recognized the girl next to him, but she couldn’t remember her name. She was in Scott’s grade, short and pretty and one of the popular ones. The girl smiled back at her, but Scott narrowed his eyes at Tessa’s cup.

“What are you drinking?” he asked.

“It’s only soda,” she said through gritted teeth. _Don’t get mad_ , she reminded herself, if only for the sake of the other girl.

“Hey,” the girl spoke up, “why don’t you join us, Tessa? We’re playing Never Have I Ever.”

One glance at Scott’s stiffness told Tessa he didn’t want her to, and for a second she considered agreeing out of spite. But she really didn’t want to antagonize him, so she decided to let him have this. “No, thanks,” she said, smiling. “I kinda like sitting here.” (And also, she really didn’t want to hear what never had Scott ever done).

“If you’re sure,” the girl replied, and she turned away.

Scott followed her with a grateful glance behind at Tessa, but she pretended she hadn’t seen it, because she was still a little bit mad.

She swung her legs and sighed. The music and voices were still loud, but in the kitchen they felt distant and she felt alone. This was not how her first party was supposed to go. She’d spent an hour curling her hair, had stood in front of the mirror and stared at herself in her lacy black dress, and it was all so…anticlimactic. Mulling over her thoughts, she hopped off the counter and walked over to the bottles and cans on the table. She grabbed a can of beer and poured some into her cup. _Live a little_ , she thought, and she strutted into the living room.

Immediately, her eyes found the back of Scott’s head, sitting in a circle at the far side of the room.

“Tessa, hey Tessa!” someone called from near her, and she looked over to see a girl from the rink waving her over to a different group.

Tessa walked over and squeezed in, hoping she didn’t look as out of place as she felt.

“Okay Tessa, how about you? Truth or Dare?” asked Laurie; she was a single skater at the rink.

“Um, Truth,” she said, because that’s what she always picked.

“I’ll go easy,” Laurie said, winking. “Who was your first kiss? And if you don’t answer you have to take a drink.”

Tessa’s mind immediately thought of that spring night, what felt like so many lifetimes and rinks and towns ago, and Scott’s lip against her cheek. Strange, how she could still picture it so vividly, all these years later. But she knew that wasn’t the kind of kiss they meant, and she knew it didn’t really count, so she answered truthfully, “I’ve never had my first kiss,”

Around the circle, people gasped and giggled and beside her Laurie’s eyes widened. “Wow, innocent Tessa,” she said.

“I mean, I haven’t really gotten any chances, I spend most of my time skating,” Tessa explained, feeling so very young. But there was a semblance of truth in that statement—if she hadn’t chained herself to the rink with Scott, would her life be like that of a normal teenager? Would this be her tenth party instead of her first? Would she have a boyfriend, have had a kiss, have maybe more? But deep down she knew, if she had a choice, she would still choose this—her hand in Scott’s—across a million lifetimes and galaxies and universes.

Laurie nodded. “We’ll have to remedy that.” She turned to the boy sitting on Tessa’s other side. “Luke,” she said, “I dare you to kiss Tessa.”

Tessa glanced covertly at him. He looked one or two years older than her, with soft brown hair and blue eyes.

He shrugged. “You’re not exactly following the rules, Laurie,” he pointed out. “But I am a pretty good kisser so I understand.”

Everyone laughed appreciatively and Luke turned to Tessa with a smile, straight teeth flashing. “Ready?”

Tessa nodded.

He leaned in, long eyelashes shut, but Tessa kept her eyes open as he pressed his mouth to hers. She felt tingly all over. _This is happening. You’re here, at a party,_ kissing _a cute boy._ His lips were soft, she noted, as she closed her eyes.

They pulled apart after a few seconds and the circle cheered, lifting their Solo cups as if making a toast. Luke flashed her another smile. “Good, right?”

Tessa blushed and took a sip of her drink, trying not to cringe as she tasted it down her throat.

  
A few hours later, and Tessa’s skin was buzzing. The game had dissolved until people were just yelling random dares and drinking, and her brain was fuzzy but she felt accomplished and content. She’d had her first kiss, she’d had her first drink, she’d gone to her first party and all without Scott standing there by her side, holding her hand like she was two years old.

And of course, now she heard his voice behind her.

She tilted her head back, not even a little bit surprised to see him standing there, looking down at her.

“Tessa, c’mon,” he said. “It’s time to go.”

“You’re upside-down,” she giggled.

He reached down and pulled her to her feet without resistance. She stumbled a bit, and grabbed onto his arm.

“Bye,” she said, waving to the group, and a few people who were paying attention waved back. “Bye, Luke!” she called, and he turned and winked at her.

Scott tugged her shoulder and led her towards the front door. “You weren’t supposed to drink,” he said.

She looked up at him. “Are you mad at me?”

He shrugged. “I’ll take care of you,” he said, and even though the last time they were standing on these steps she’d told him she didn’t need his care, he said it so sweetly that it sent a warm feeling straight to her heart.

“Thanks for letting me come,” she told him.

“I didn’t _let_ you come, Tess,” he said, glancing sideways at her with a small smile. “No one _lets_ you do anything. You do what you want.”

(And maybe he said this to make her feel better or something, she doesn’t know what, but to her 15 year old self it meant something. Because for a very long time what she hated most about herself was that she had always depended on him more than he had ever depended on her, and that was a fact that hurt her a little bit. But to hear from his mouth that she was her own person settled a confidence deep in her bones. At the time, though, she didn’t know what to say, and so she changed the subject).

“So…so what happened to that girl?” she asked.

“What girl?” he replied, opening the passenger door and helping her in.

“You know…that, that _girl_. That wanted a coke.”

“Oh, you mean Jess. Yeah, she’s from school.” He shut her door and climbed in from the other side. “Buckle up, kiddo,” he said, and he looked at her so _tenderly_ that it broke her heart.

She looked at him, alive and beating beside her and she suddenly felt an expanding fullness, a mixture of affection and sadness and nostalgia and a hundred other emotions she couldn’t name. But she knew, in that moment, that he would stay at her side, the way he had since she was seven and he was nine, and _he’d followed her here to Kitchener-Waterloo hadn’t he?_ And he’d been the one next to her as they stood on the podium, hearts pulsing wildly together and two heads shorter than everyone else even as they stood on the highest step, and now she felt so grateful for him to be there because she knew one day she wouldn’t have him.

She wanted to say all this to him, but the words got lodged somewhere partway between her throat. “Scott,” she said, sounding weepy, “sometimes I…sometimes—“

“Shh,” he said, glancing at her, and sometimes when she replays this moment years later she thinks there was almost guilt in his eyes, like he didn’t want to hear what she wanted to say because he knew he’d break her heart.

She wanted to stay awake and commit everything to memory; the way the streetlights blurred outside the windows and the hum of the engine beneath them, so that when she was 30 years old she could look back on this moment and remember what it felt like to be stupid and in love the way she only let herself concede to in the space before dreams. But she was tipsy, and she was tired. Her last thought before she fell asleep was, _Sometimes it scares me how much I love you._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can follow me at arrogant-bullying-toerag on tumblr!


End file.
